Waymo, the autonomous vehicle technology company under Google parent Alphabet, closed a $5 billion loan from a series of high-profile lenders, including PIMCO, Blackstone, and Sixth Street. The debt financing — Waymo’s first — comes as the company accelerates its commercial expansion within existing cities while pushing into new markets in the United States, Europe,
Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility, your hub for the future of transportation and now, more than ever, the role AI is playing in it. To get this in your inbox, sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! On an average day in San Francisco, you might see dozens (hundreds?) of Waymo robotaxis
There are many challenges to putting self-driving cars on the road. Elon Musk says one of them has nine lives. The Tesla CEO announced on Saturday that the company is expanding the operating hours of its robotaxis from 10 p.m. to 11 p.m. in Austin and said that his team has been trying to overcome
Autonomous vehicle (AV) technology companies like Tesla, Waymo, and Zoox will have to provide first responders with local, on-the-ground support when their robotaxis cause problems under a new California law. The companies could also face penalties if a robotaxi blocks police or firefighters for more than 30 minutes. Senate Bill 1246, which was signed into
Waymo’s commercial robotaxi ramp-up looks expansive, both in geographic reach and in ridership. And by almost every measure, it is — until you pay attention to where the bulk of those robotaxis are actually showing up. The numbers over the past two years reflect the kind of commercial rollout you’d expect from a deep-pocketed company
Pavlo Bazilinskyy still can’t believe he was on PornHub for work. He’s an assistant professor at the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands, and has spent more than a decade researching AI-driven interactions between humans and robots. But he found himself typing “public transport” into the search bar of a very specific website’s “amateur
